A Satanic parody of the Rapture?

"Project World Evacuation" is a small book containing channelled messages from outer space. Its dramatic subtitle is "UFOs to assist the `Great Exodus' of human souls off this planet". This is the newly expanded edition. The author calls herself Tuella.

Tuella seems to be on a first name basis with all the usual ascended masters of neo-Theosophy, I AM Activity and UFO lore: Sananda (a.k.a. Jesus the Christ), Kuthumi, Korton, St. Germain, Hilarion and Hatonn. She also receives instructions from Lytton, Monka, Andromeda Rex, Commander Jycondria, and Captain Avalon of the Floridian Mountains Communications Center for the Southwest. But above all, Tuella is a channel for Commander Ashtar, the leader of the Ashtar Command. (Incidentally, there is no connection between this luminous space brother and the present reviewer.)

Are we to believe Tuella, millions of UFOs stand by to save the faithful remnant from the calamities soon to befall our planet. First, the chosen ones will be taken onboard space ships for education. Even Tuella admits that it's unclear how this will be accomplished: will the "light workers" be beamed up physically, or will their souls visit the ships while the body is still on Earth? At one point, Tuella asked whether people who are sleeping nude will be naked when taken to the ships out-of-body, but the aliens assured her that the souls will be properly dressed! Back on Earth, the chosen ones will be given evidence with which they can convince world leaders and public opinion. Later, the world evacuation proper will commence in three distinct stages, one of them invisible. Most of the light workers will be beamed up during Phase I. The second phase will entail the evacuation of all children. Phase III is the most dramatic: the space ships will show themselves hovering in the Earth's atmosphere and rescue "whosoever is without fear and whose vibratory frequency is sufficient to bear the levitation beams".

For some reason, the space brothers are less clear on what kind of disaster will befall our godforsaken planet. Will it be a shifting of the poles? Tuella says that the aliens are artificially upholding the balance between the poles, and if they ever let go, we're in trouble... Collision with another solar system (sic), nuclear war or gigantic earthquakes caused by sun spots are other possible disasters. The aliens don't seem to be aware of climate change or al-Qaeda, but then, most of these messages are from the 1980's.

It's implied that only a "remnant" will be saved, that the Earth will be "cleansed" (perhaps by nuclear war) and that the unrighteous will be removed to two sealed levels of the astral realm, presumably for further karmic processing. The righteous will get back to Earth after the cleansing. By that time, they will have "Light bodies".

OK, am I the only person who thinks this sounds strangely familiar? It's obvious that Tuella's ideas are simply a neo-Theosophical version of Christian apocalypticism, more specifically the ideas concerning the Rapture and the Millennium. It's basically the same scenario, but with a naturalistic twist, since the space ships "rapturing" the believers seem to be physical craft. Indeed, some Christian fundamentalists believe that Tuella's book is a Satanic parody of the Rapture, and also point out that the name "Ashtar" sounds similar to Ishtar, Astarte or Asera, three pagan deities condemned in the Bible. In plain verse, Tuella has been tricked by the Devil himself.

Personally, I have a more mundane explanation: she made it all up, or she has a pretty vivid imagination. At one point, Tuella informs us that conferences of the ascended masters do include refreshments, but not doughnuts and coffee! Call me old fashioned, but with the exception of Osho, I tend to get vary if somebody with a spiritual message has a strange sense of humour...

Even apart from that, "Project World Evacuation" is an extremely boring book. You have to sift through a lot of verbiage before you get to the main points.